


Lost It To Trying

by orphan_account



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Capitol Citizens, District 4, Drug Use, F/M, Family, Finnick Odair-Centric, Gen, Hunger Games, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Original Character(s), Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prostitution, Rape/Non-con Elements, Recreational Drug Use, Sexual Abuse, Substance Abuse, Teenagers, The Capitol, Underage Drug Use, Underage Prostitution, Underage Sex, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 15:11:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10165718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Finnick Odair is the bright young Victor who is slowly being hollowed out to his Games and the aftermath; Svena Alossis is privileged Capitol teenager turned model, one of the glorious social elite. Finnick is struggling to survive. Svena is oblivious, reckless and self centred. The stomach of the Capitol is a cruel reality.This is not a love story.





	

_What will we do now?_  
We’ve lost it to trying  
We’ve lost it to trying 

It’s a little dead girl from Twelve.

She looks like his sisters, small and slight with brown eyes, and jumps on him in the middle of the night with a piece of twisted string and steel around his throat, pulled hard. He claws at his throat as adrenaline rushes in thick acid washes and blinds him so he doesn't register anything more than an opponent when he tears her off him and slams her, struggling and whimpering, into the river. She kicks him in the stomach and he collapses on top of her, hands fisted in her tangled hair, holding her in the river as she twists and writhes and screams and dies.

And then there is nothing but a lifeless soaking child.

The cannon goes off. He is sick with guilt, terror at himself, horror, the disgusting helpless tragedy of it all; and then he remembers what he has to do home and see his real sister. So he sits up. And he wipes his mouth. And he fucking  _smiles_ at the camera, he sits and smiles and they pick up her damp little corpse and he celebrates, joy clear in the glint of his perfect white teeth, in his clean shaking hands.

Finnick comes out of the Games soulless. This is the part where he loses his soul.

After that there is a stocky boy from Three who's splitting off from the Career pack, and falls right into Finnick's hiding place, and they fight in silence in the dirt and try to kill each other. The boy is winning and has Finnick by the throat.

And then Finnick reaches up and hooks his fingers behind the boy's jaw and drives his thumbs into his eyes and there is that terrible squelching and the boy screams, and Finnick pushes deeper and grins grimly for the cameras, while he is sick to his stomach and wanting to die, desperately, in those few grisly seconds while he is blinding another human being, and then he picks up his bag and runs. There is the cannon soon after when the Career pack finds the boy and kills him while he scrambles and screams, blind and horrified.

Finnick takes his shirt off and washes it in the river, knowing that the cameras are focused on him while he washes the blood away and grits his teeth and tells himself that once this is over, it will be worth it. It  _has_ to be.

They send him a trident once he's put on enough of a show and he finds the Career pack and kills them all, four people in quick succession. It is a brutal, fierce fight, and the cameras will be loving him, and he grins when it's over and stands in the battle ground splattered with blood and lifts his trident and mouths thank you at the camera, like they don't love him enough already. He knows that he is made for this, for the kills, for the show, for the game, and when he's knotting rope together for his traps in those quiet moments between days he hates himself a little more because he does get a thrill out of this.

And the Capitol knows that, and love him for it.

Plinth is a boy from Six who gets caught in one of his traps right next to Finnick, and Finnick turns in shock to see him strung up and yelling. That clip makes it to the final cut; it makes a pretty picture, the twitching silhouette suspended in rope against the eggshell concaved sky, clutching at his neck and stilling in the final moments while Finnick watches and waits.

Another pretty picture; Julia, the last standing against Finnick, on the ground with his trident in her stomach. She stares up at the sky with her slowly emptying eyes, full lips parted in wonder like she is watching something they cannot see. Her blonde hair is a halo around her on the floor and her limbs are spread-eagled in the dirt, a graceful dying starfish on the shore, and the blood is a slick red pool that grows and grows and grows until it is touching Finnick's toes, and she is breathing slowly in loud harsh wheezes until she stops, still staring, and the pool keeps growing and the cannon goes off.

  ..............

Svena is sixteen, beautiful, clever, loved. She pads downstairs, barefoot on luxurious carpeted floors, drifting into the kitchen where her dad is eating an omelette. “Hello, darling,” he greets, pushing her plate towards her.

“Thanks, Dad,” she says, taking a seat.

“You’re up late. Rough night?”

“Something like that,” she laughs, recalling Elise’s all night twister party. It was a twister party because everyone got twisted on a mystery drug. Everyone bought a pill, put it in a cup, shook it up, and selected someone else’s drugs and enjoyed the ride. Svena’s was some mix of ice and meth and she’d twisted all the way round on the resulting high.

“Are you watching the Games? I really think that Finnick kid is gonna win. He’s killed more than the others now, you know.”

“Dad,” she chastises, cutting into her omelette. “You know I don’t support the Games. It’s murdering children for their parent’s sins.”

“Don’t give me that liberal rubbish, you know it’s just entertainment. Lighten up, kid.”

“Right,” she says, rolling her eyes and standing up. “I’ll see you after school, okay? I love you!”

“Love you too!” he shouts after her. “Aren’t you going to have breakfast?”

“No, I’m on a diet,” she says, slipping her shoes on by the door, waiting for it to slide open and exiting into the street. She takes a moment to breathe, enjoying the sun and glistening pavement, the cool summer morning air, the drones whirring above flitting to their destinations. The walk to school is short and picturesque, although she passes holographic television screens broadcasting the Games, and rolls her eyes at them.

Everyone in school is talking about last night’s party and the Games. “Who do you think is going to win, Svena?” someone asks her, and the group turns to her, wide eyed and respectful. Svena wants to slap them for their adoration and sighs loudly. “Finnick, I guess,” she says, though she doesn’t even know who Finnick is.

“Four? Nah, they haven’t won in ages,” someone disagrees confidently. “And his kills were all flukes. My money’s on Polya. Careers always win.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” someone else interjects. Svena sighs longer and leans away from the conversation, then gets up and starts walking. Outside of the polished building, standing in the flowering gardens, there’s a group of people smoking who wave her over. They’re all dressed in New Wave outfits and she feels a little plain next to them, with all their retro leather and glamet studs. “Got anything for a comedown?” she asks hopefully and is handed a couple pills of Val. “Val?” she questions. “Who’s still into that?”

“You, apparently,” Jian answers, too wide too bright modified lumi-eyes staring at her earnestly. She concedes the point, tipping her head back and swallowing. They go down awkward and dry and don’t take affect just yet; that’s alright, it’ll work soon enough.

Svena’s next lesson is Mathematics. “This is deranged,” she mutters in the back row to Lay, her best friend, whose lilac hair was grown out for the party last night from pixie style to brushing her hips. “I’m going into fashion, not fucking accountancy. Why are we learning this?”

“Svena!” Lay whispers disapprovingly. “You’re twisted! At school!”

“It’s just for the comedown,” Svena drawls lazily.

“What did you take?”

“Two Vals, that’s it.”

“Val? Who takes that anymore?”

“That’s what I said.”

“And what did Jian say?”

“'You, apparently.' And how did you know it was Jian who gave me them?”

“You always get them off him. He’s in love with you, so of course he’s going to give them.”

“He’s not in love with               me.”

“Everyone’s in love with you and you know it, you narcissistic bitch. Even I’m in love with you.”

“And I’m in love with you too,” Svena giggles, falling into Lay. She doesn’t deny the point, though. Everyone does love her. And she does know it.

Mathematics is stopped because of everyone’s excitement; Finnick Odair is the winner of the Games. “It’s finally over,” Svena sighs in relief, ignoring all their idiotic exclamations. They won’t stop talking and replaying over and over key scenes. She gets tired of the blood and the beautiful boy they’re already falling for, so she puts her head down on the desk and falls into dreamless Val sleep.

 

................

 

"So, Finnick, how does it feel to prove me wrong? After all, you said told me in first interview that you were going to win."

"Caeser, are you saying you doubted me?" Finnick teases, leaning over. His jacket falls open to show more of his shirtless glistening chest and he looks round at the audience, flexing and grinning as they cheer.

"Of course not, my boy," Caeser assures, reaching to him. "Well, maybe a bit. But I'm pretty sure everyone here was betting on you."

"Not if the trident was an indication," Finnick laughs. The crowd cheers.

"For sure—" Caeser nods. "Are you aware that you broke the record for the most sponsors?"

"I'm not surprised," Finnick grins. He's always loved the tang of arrogance, and the Capitol loves the way it looks on him. "I've got to think of a way to pay everyone back for that."

"I have a few ideas," Flickerman winks, overly lascivious, and the crowd laughs.

  ..............

The chair is hard and cold, and Finnick sits inelegantly on it with his feet on the plush carpet. He doesn't know where to look; President Snow is ignoring him, reading something on a tablet in front of him, and there are no windows in this enclosed choking space, nothing but a desk and white roses in stacks against the carved walls, filling up the room with their heady perfume.

The president looks up, smiles coldly. "Finnick Odair," he says. "Your victory was remarkable. Congratulations."

"Thank you," Finnick says awkwardly. For once, he is a stranger in his own skin; he is uncomfortable, ill at ease, at odds with the situation.

"You made quite a splash," the president continues. "Caeser told you that you broke the record for sponsors?"

"Yeah," Finnick says. President Snow pushes a list over to him. Finnick takes it—it's a small slip of paper, with small printed names in two rows. "What's this?"

"Your sponsors," he replies. "So you know who you have to repay."

"Repay?" Finnick says cautiously.

It is an art, the way Snow manoeuvres him. Effortless, practically careless. A spider with its web, or Finnick with his traps, and Finnick is the fly, or the children strung up by their neck and hung against the arena's sky.

Snow says to him, "It would be a shame if something would happen to your family, just after you became a Victor, wouldn't it?"

"What?" Finnick says, fast. He starts to panic, acid coming up the back of his throat— _no one told him about this._

"Don't worry, Finnick. Nothing's going to happen now. But in six months, after you have time to heal with your family and get used to life as a Victor, you'll return to the Capitol."

"For what?" Finnick whispers.

"You want to repay your sponsors, don't you?"

Finnick understands.

..............

It's another Saturday. Svena is seeing if a micro dose of morphling will cure her hangover. She stumbles downstairs and collapses onto a couch in front of the television, where Finnick Odair is filmed arriving home, beautiful and perfect as always even after his train journey. Before long her father comes in, a shirtless handsome man trailing after him, and says, "Good morning, darling. Slept well?"

"Despite the noise," she nods at them. "You two stayed up late, then?"

Her father laughs at her and his companion comes forwards to shake her hand. "Jasper. Nice to meet you."

"I'm sure," she returns, raising an eyebrow. His handshake is warm and firm. He prolongs eye contact with her, gold irises glinting in the light then turns swiftly back to her father, bending to kiss him close mouthed on the mouth. "I'll see you for dinner, Ivo?"

"Yes, I'll come and pick you up," her father smiles. Jasper leaves the room and the automated door slides shut behind him. Svena moves her hand upwards in the direction of the television sensors so the volume rises. "What a catch," she says half mocking, half appreciative to her dad. "Will he be sticking around?"

"Not if I can help it. He's too hot headed for anything more than a fling."

"He didn't seem hot headed. And I thought you liked them young and reckless?"

"Young and pretty," her father corrects. "Reckless just seems to go along with those two. You would know."

"Would I," she rolls her eyes. "I'm perfectly charming, Dad."

"Charming and devilish, wouldn't you say?"

"Devilish? I'm not sure that's apt."

"I think it would indeed describe someone who stole my emergency morphling."

"Daddy!" she gasps in mock horror. "How could you accuse me of that? For all you know, it was your little boy toy in the middle of the night." He just looks at her, smiling but more serious, and she gives up and slumps back into the couch. "Fine, I did take it. But it's a onetime thing. I was in a lot of pain."

"Just make sure it doesn't become a habit. I don't want you to turn into one of those strung out morphlings they still call Victors."

"Of course it won't. I've cut down the drug use after our talk, haven't I?"

He stares at her for a long moment before smiling tightly. "I trust you, Svena."

"Good," she says, smiling brightly. Before it gets uncomfortable she stands up and makes for the door. "I'm going back to bed. I've got a party later, I need to be refreshed."

"Yes, sleep it off," he smiles. "I'll be gone with Jasper before you wake up. Have a good time, darling."

"You too," she says, and leaves.

The micro dose of morphling is not micro enough to prevent nightmares; she crumples in bed, half trapped in sleep, drowning in a flashback. She is tiny again, and cold, and so hungry she could die. The loneliness is so acute she can feel it in her bones. She's in some dirty street corner, hands out, pleading, but everyone stomps past and ignores her. They're too trapped within their own problems. She pulls her bony knees up to her chest and shudders muddy tears. She wants her parents. She misses them. She's so, so scared.

Svena staggers into the bathroom and collapses, fully clothed, into the shower. "Ice," she commands shakily, and an ice cold spray comes thundering down. She shakes and gasps her way back to reality.

She manages to calm herself down and for something to do, gets changed, puts her makeup on, chooses her shoes; and is ready five hours before the party starts. She lays supine in bed, feeling like a Sleeping Beauty, all still and pale and perfect, doing nothing.

An Avox comes in, laden with cleaning supplies. He sees her and starts backwards. "Get out," Svena tells him exasperatedly, sighing in relief when he leaves.

She falls asleep again and only wakes to someone shaking her. She starts awake and sits up. It's Lay, in a tight mesh dress, six inch heels dangling off her feet. "Wake up, Svena. Did you forget we were coming?"

"We?" Svena says, propping herself up. She looks quickly to her left, where the wall is a huge mirror, and ascertains her makeup isn't smudged.

"Yes, we came to get ready. Remember?" Althea chirps. She's sitting on the edge of Svena's bed. Next to her is Sabille, reapplying her lipstick.

"Oh yeah," Svena yawns, sitting up. "Cool. Great. What time is the party, again?"

"Starts at ten, we'll arrive at eleven. Then there's an after party by the river, but if it's too cold we can go bar hopping. Everyone got their fake IDs?"

Everyone sounds their agreement. Svena hasn't. Everyone who's anyone knows who she is, and she can get in anywhere she wants.

Sabille has bought Candy. Candy—or capital C, or Candy-with-a-capital-C—is pink dust you swallow or rub into your gums. It takes the edge off and buzzes you up, simultaneously. When everyone is ready they strut out of Svena's house, giggling and high on Candy, expectations, the beginning of the night. The car is early. They pile in and are driven off to the party.

 ..............

Finnick comes home.

When he gets off from the train, Mags is by his side, and a handful of other victors who know what it's like and work as a wall to separate him off from the cameras and the crowd. His family is there, ready to greet him; his little sister, Liana, throws herself at him with open arms and he hugs her tight, almost choking on tears of relief, on the immensity of the love he has for them. Jesu, his older brother, is there with his wife and son, and Finnick marvels at how much his nephew has grown and hugs Jesu with Liana hanging off his neck, and then his cousins come to tackle him around his knees and his aunt says, "Thank god you're home," and Finnick is home.

They start walking down the coast—he hugs Mags goodbye and thanks the other victors, he'll see them tomorrow when they start moving into their new home—and Finnick frowns and says, "Where's Mom and Dad?"

Jesu and Sia, his wife, share a look and Jesu says, "Mom's a bit... sensitive. Dad's staying with her until she calms down enough to visit you."

"They don't want to see me?" Finnick says, heartbroken.

"It's not that," Jesu says carefully. "Anyway, you can come and stay with us until you move into your new house."

"I can't go home?" Finnick asks. Liana clutches his hand and he can't bring himself to look down at her.

"We'll talk about it later," Jesu says, and they leave it at that.

  .............. 

He screams at his mother, "It wasn't my fault!  _It wasn't my fault_!" But he doesn't believe it himself and he doesn't know what to do.

She is shivering and red eyed and clutching herself in their little scrappy couch that he used to pick the edges of, and Jesu and Sia and Finnick's father and his aunt and uncle are standing, silent witnesses, against the wall. "I saw you kill that little girl," his mother sobs, staring at him accusingly. "Don't deny it. I saw it, we all saw it. What if it was Liana, Finnick?"

"It wasn't my fault," he says, hushed, curling in on himself. There is something jagged pressing up against the insides of his lungs and it is hard to breathe, and harder to believe himself.

"How did I give birth to a monster?" she asks herself, spreading her hands and staring into her palms like she'll find the answer there.

Finnick searches the faces of the rest of his family, standing by the wall, awkward and looking down. He wants them to say something, to hear them speak, to reassure himself that he is still loved, even if it is not by this woman who has given birth to a monster. But they don't look up, and they don't move, and he wants to say,  _I did this for you._

"The last time I saw you, you were crying because I was Reaped," he says, desperately. "Where are you? Where's the person who held my hand and made me promise to come home?"

She says, "I was crying because Finnick Odair, my son, was Reaped." She says, clearly; "That boy did not come home."

"Mom," he begs helplessly, near tears. "Mom,  _I love you._ "

And; she says, chin raised, eyes hard—"Don't call me that."

  ..............

It's in the middle of the night and he's on his back in the sea. The sky is black, clear, sharp, endless; the sea edged, dangerous, dark, fathomless. There is salt under his eyes and between his lips, tracks down his cheek, whispering around his hips and legs and trailing fingers, the coolness of an ocean.

He wakes up screaming and choking on the shore, retching up water in his lungs to the silence of a sunrise, on all fours in the sand, dripping saltwater. This is how the little girl felt, held under by his hands, screaming for her family in the bubbles of the water. This is how she died, full of panic and sick and pain.

This is what he deserves.

He sits up and puts his head in his hands, crying silently. Now all he can feel are ghost hands over his bare torso, the souls of all the children he killed trying to get through to him, begging for another chance, for their sweet short lives back.

There really is a hand on his shoulder. A girl around his age stands behind him, looking down inquisitively. "Finnick Odair? Are you alright?"

He dries his eyes and tries to smile. "'Course, beautiful. Taking a midnight stroll. You're Annie Cresta, right?"

"Yes," she says, sitting down next to him, long legs crossed in the sand and white in the moonlight. "Why are you crying?"

"I was thinking about how you weren't in my life," he smirks at her.

She laughs and looks at him steadily. Her green eyes are very bright, her red hair almost floating in the slight cool breeze, her skin almost glowing. She says, "Would you like to be friends, Finnick Odair?"

"I would like that very much," he says to her and takes her hand.

..............

It's school holidays so Svena has two weeks off. She's spent the whole time partying, her and Lay riding the wave, running from thrill to thrill. She turns seventeen half way through and only remembers at midnight. She comes home to a surprise party, full of Capitol elite, drunk and spinning and glorious. President Snow phones her in the morning to say happy birthday. She has sex in her bed with some handsome stranger, under the sheets, lights on him, long and languid and slow.

Her half hearted model’s career which started as a sort of joke booms: she is invited to headline a semi-major fashion show, and she struts down the catwalk in some ridiculous contraption, fully sober with her friends filling the audience. Those two weeks she’s in the headlines more often than not. She has her first cosmetic surgery, minor lip fillers (and decides against anymore surgeries, despite the overwhelming positive reception) and gets gold tattoos around her ankles.

“I’m growing up,” she tells herself in the mirror, smiling with her overstretched lips.

When the holidays are over she decides not to go back to school. She has less than a year left, after all, and plenty of friends have left already to pursue life in the real world or studies or reckless hedonism. She gets an agent and throws herself headfirst into modelling. It’s a boost, all this people in love with her, with her body, her face, and she relishes in the attention.

It cumulates in Arron Sgelowi, the most prestigious name in fashion, inviting her to the biggest party of the year. Only celebrities are there: high fashion models, designers, socialites, pop stars, actors, Victors. Svena screams when she hears, messages all her friends. And her date for the evening—none other than newest Victor, Finnick Odair.

 ..............

Finnick picks Liana up from school and takes her to the sea for swimming lessons. They do a couple hours then relax on the sand, sifting through handfuls for shells. Liana says, "Why are you living with Jesu? I want you to be with us."

"I'm not living with anyone anymore, I have a new house because I'm a Victor. Remember?"

"Alright, well why can't we live with you? You're only _fourteen,_ Finnick."

"That's twice your age," he laughs, poking her.

"But you're not supposed to live on your own at fourteen and I want to live with you."

"Things are different for a Victor, Liana."

"I don't want them to be," she says, suddenly flinging herself on him, skinny arms wrapped tight around his shoulders, head buried into his chest. Muffled, she says, "I missed you and I want to live with you and I don't want you to leave ever again."

"Okay," he says, hugging her close, a sting behind his eyes, and then his six months are up and he goes to the Capitol.

 


End file.
